Abstract:

Legged robots relying on dry adhesives for vertical climbing are required to preload their feet against the wall to increase contact surface area and consequently maximize adhesion force. Preloading a foot causes a redistribution of forces in the entire robot, including contact forces between the other feet and the wall. An inappropriate redistribution of these forces can cause irreparable detachment of the robot from the vertical surface. This paper investigates an optimal preloading and detaching strategy that minimizes energy consumption, while retaining safety, during locomotion on vertical surfaces. The gait of a six-legged robot is planned using a quasi-static model that takes into account both the structure of the robot and the characteristics of the adhesive material. The latter was modelled from experimental data collected for this paper. A constrained optimization routine is used, and its output is a sequence of optimal posture and motor torque set-points.

Key words: climbing robot, dry adhesive, gait planning, legged robots, preloading